Perspective

Running Boston Backwards

anthony l Kovatch, mD

“Life must be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards.”

—Soren Kirkegaard, Danish philosopher and father of Existentialism (1813-1835)

They were there to embrace me in my state of exhaustion after finishing the long race—if only retroactively and in my imagination! It was Saturday, March 12th of 2022. I had started the race on Saturday, October 9th of 2011. I was so exhilarated that we took a picture for Facebook to be remembered for another 50 years. (See photo at end of article.)

After all, it is clearly stated in the rulebook that a VIRTUAL marathon--even the most pre-eminent of them all, the one in Boston—can be run at the time and place determined by the registrant who has paid his fee and on completion will receive his medal. Therefore, I reasoned, delayed gratification is acceptable—even when the delay spans 50 years…. ……..It was a watershed assignment for the fledgling reporter of the sports department of the Daily Pennsylvanian, which in 1972 had proclaimed itself the #1 student newspaper in the country; he was to write an editorial about the historic Boston Marathon, which was taking place the following Monday, as was the tradition.

This being 50 years ago, I cannot now remember why a student in Philadelphia was candidly reporting upon an event in a rival city that was likely to be glorified by a top-notch reporter in a rival institution (Harvard). I had no credentials, being the kind of inferior athlete who hides from the eyes of the world by running alone along the paths of cemeteries or in the darkness of the early night.

I do remember well that the title of the editorial in my column called “Kid’s Korner” was purposely insipid and vague: “The Men, the Madness, and the Marathon.” I only half –remember the opening line: “The distance from Hopkinton, MA to Copley Square in the heart of Boston is 26.2 miles---it is forever (or maybe I wrote “eternal”) in a dream.” Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that a half century later, I would be one of the “Men,” albeit only vicariously. I realize now that, even back in those lost days of youth, I had a flare for melodrama.

After a long moratorium from casual running when my children were too young and restless to cooperate in such a monotonous, lonely activity, I

Perspective Perspective

resumed the endeavor in my forties, probably to ward off a mid-life crisis. After finishing near the back of the pack in a couple dozen marathons (typically on page 9 of the 10 pages of results) over the span of a couple dozen years, I was forced by the cancellations wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic to keep up my training by spending my “weekend warrior” hours sludging through a new concept in sporting events: the virtual marathon. These “races” can be run anywhere and anytime one chooses, even in dark cemeteries. Pay a handsome fee, submit a time, and your handsomelycrafted medal arrives in your mailbox within a few days or weeks. There is even some pride in the accomplishment—even for the lastplace finishers like “Slowvatch!”

So, when the venerable Boston Marathon became humble and joined the virtual scene in its 125th year, I had no hesitation to fulfill the “eternal dream” I had reported upon 50 years hence. Being a disciple of Doctor George Sheehan---cardiologist, father of 12, elite runner in his later years, internationally-known author of running books (“Running and Being” is his classic), and guru of the generation of us who run, not only for our physical fitness, but more so for our spiritual fitness—I had his battle cry for inspiration:

“Like everything else, I want to be challenged. I want to find out whether or not I am a coward. I want to see how much effort I can put out…what I can endure—if I measure up. Running allows that.”

There was no better stage for this than Pittsburgh; I had run the true Pittsburgh Marathon and its stepsister, The Great Race, many times over the years. George Sheehan’s son, Andrew, is an investigative reporter for KDKA-TV, the Steel City’s top network. So, the lonely running trails along the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers were my personal course over the two days of my imaginary feat.

“I am now running through the campus of Harvard University; there is the statue of Paul Revere; the crowds are cheering me on and giving me high-fives! ” I told myself. I fed my mind with a kind of Kafkaesque inner dialogue, making the most of my vicarious adventure. I was running Boston in my mind---and, as Doctor Sheehan would have argued, in my soul as well.

“Here comes the bonk!” I told myself as I was imagining “hitting the wall” while running mile 20 on Washington’s Landing. “Soon you will be running up the fabled ‘Heartbreak Hill’ and may be overcome by physical and mental fatigue. As you have done in your training, you must run backwards!”

Running backwards is hardly for the timid. In spite of qualifying for Boston running forward and well aware of the pitfalls—torn-up feet, calves ready to explode, neck muscle spasms because of constantly having to look behind you, running into trees—Loren Brian Zitomersky took up the challenge of running the entire 26.2 miles backwards in 2018; his inspiration was to raise awareness of the Epilepsy Foundation to honor his brother Brian who died of intractable seizures. However, in researching this initiative, I believe Zitomersky had the glorification of some other courageous phenotypes on his mind:

“There are some blind runners in the Marathon too, and generally they have a guide as well. So there was one blind runner and his guide said to him, ‘Hey, there’s a backwards runner over there.” And the blind guy says really loud, ‘A backwards runner?! That’s crazy….. How can he see where he’s going?! ‘ “Everyone within earshot had a really good laugh with that one.”

And so, for a mile or two I did run backwards. I only turned around when I sensed the beguiled faces of casual onlookers. I wanted to shout out: “Don’t look at me like that. I am not going nuts! When Jimmy Piersall hit his 100th career home run, he ran around the BASES backwards!”

Piersall had a tumultuous major league career with many honors—and ejections! He was renowned for his antics on and off the field---mostly on. In his autobiography Piersall commented: “Probably the best thing that ever happened to me was going nuts. Who ever heard of Jimmy Piersall until that happened?” In his promising rookie season, he had to leave his team (the Boston Red Sox!) to be institutionalized for a nervous breakdown.

He reported this experience in a landmark book, “Fear Strikes Out,” which won him the acclaim and the admiration of the baseball community and the world at large. Overnight, Piersall became the poster child for the talented athlete who endures through a serious mental health obstacle. It was bipolar disorder.

Continued on Page 18

From Page 17

As I crossed the imaginary finish line that day (grandfriends Nora and Liam would be there months later in the grand scheme of things), my head was filled with quotations from the song “White Rabbit” written by Grace Slick of the group Jefferson Airplane in their album “Surrealistic Pillow” (1967—an era of ideologic foment when it was “cool” to be “nuts.”)

When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead And the White Knight is talking Backwards And the Red Queen’s off with her head Remember what the Doormouse said Feed your head, FEED YOUR HEAD

While the characters in “Alice in Wonderland” were feeding their heads with opium and other psychedelic drugs, I was filling my own with gratitude for just finishing the race. Gratitude that the iconic event had gone virtual before my aging body was too worn out by time and life’s considerations to participate even vicariously. Gratitude that my aging mind was competent enough to remember what I had written 50 years ago as a novice and that I could fulfill what I thought at that time was merely a pipedream. Gratitude that I could reasonably claim out loud that 2022 would be the “year of the boomerang” when our everyday lives might return to normalcy, and that “everything new would seem old again” as we understand the dynamics of history backwards.

Case in point: At the completion of “The Men, the Madness, and the Marathon,” I ask a runner I interviewed for the story: “Why do you want to run the Boston Marathon?” I did not long remember his name or his level of ability, but I clearly remember his answer:

“I want to run the race for the same reason that George Mallory said he wanted to climb Mount Everest: Because it’s there!”

Mallory was a greatly respected English mountaineer whose efforts paved the way for Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and his Sherpa, Tanzig Norgayof Nepal, to be the first to climb to the top of Mount Everest in 1953. Mallory made his famous statement in 1923. In 1924 he mysteriously disappeared during an expedition to Everest. His frozen dead body was only discovered 75 years later in 1999.

Mountaineering pioneer George Mallory (1886-1924): “Chance of a

lifetime in a lifetime of chance”

It’s breeding and it is training/ And it’s something unknown That drives you/ And carries you home And it’s run for the roses/ As fast as you can Your fate is delivered/ Your moment’s at hand It’s the chance of a lifetime/ In a lifetime of chance And it’s high time you joined in the dance! -----“Run for the Roses” by Dan Fogelberg (1982)

They say that life is a marathon and its mile markers are the years and now and then there’s a water station where you refuel for when you have nothing left. In the closing pages of George Sheehan’s final book on running “Going the Distance,” his son George Sheehan III iterates in his absence:

“The end came a few days “ after Father Brady spoke of Dad’s acceptance of death…It was Friday. He lapsed into a deep sleep that worked its way into Sunday night. A visiting nurse told us that he might die within 24 hours…Dad in a dark blue turtleneck, lying under the covers with a handcloth on his brow, was looking like he did during his days in the Lennox Hotel recovering from a Boston Marathon.”

And this is another reason that I am grateful: whether virtual or real, whether 50 years ago or today, whether we are physicians, marathoners, mountain climbers, parents, or just simply passing through--we all stand on the shoulders of giants---MEN (or WOMEN) whose MADNESS pushes the rest of us to overcome not only MARATHONS, but all challenges that are simply THERE.

This story was originally posted in the The Pediablog. Allegheny Health Network, on January 6th, 2022: http://www.thepediablog. com/2022/01/06/out-of-the-old-blackbag-14/ The editor, Dr Ned Ketyer, is one of the “giants” I refer to above.

Addendum: Just when I thought the race was finally over, I received a request for an alumni donation from the college newspaper for which I wrote the original editorial 50 years ago. I submitted a small amount---50 dollars—to be sure the student newspaper would remain #1 in the country, but I would have rather grabbed the editors by their shirts and yelled into their naïve faces the admonition of George Sheehan:

“It’s very hard, in the beginning, to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually, you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit.” (This is true even when running alone in cemeteries.)

I will be sure when they are ready that Dear Sweet Nora and “Big Guy” Liam learn this important fact! Fifty years from the starting line, they were there with me at the finish line of the virtual Boston Marathon---my “grandfriends” Dear Sweet Nora and “Big Guy” Liam.